The Institute of Anabaptist and Mennonite Studies at Grebel has announced the 2018-2019 recipient of the J. Winfield Fretz Fellowship in Mennonite Studies, Dr. Ben Nobbs-Thiessen.
A Latin American historian whose research focuses on the evolving history of the low-German Mennonite diaspora in the region, he completed his PhD at Emory University in 2016 and is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the School of Transborder Studies at Arizona State University. His book project, Landscape of Migration: Mobility and Agro-Environmental Change on Bolivia’s Tropical Frontier, is currently under review for publication. It explores the role of Indigenous Andean, Mennonite, and Okinawan settlers in Bolivia’s “March to the East,” which was per capita one of the largest tropical colonization projects of the 20th century.
Ben will take up residency at Grebel in May 2019 for two months. Drawing on resources at the Mennonite Archives of Ontario and Milton Good Library, he plans to “explore the environmental, economic, and religious factors that produced and sustained multi-generational trans-border Mennonite communities” in Canada, the United States, and Mexico.
